An inspiring collection: Snapshots by 11 youths capture a nation

From The Province
Stuart Derdeyn
November 9, 2006

Original art needs original spaces and Regeneration — 11 Disposable Cameras, 1 Indispensible Nation fits the bill. It’s an inspiring collaborative work by 11 youth, ages 11 to 14, from the Lax Kw’alaams band in the northern coastal village of Port Simpson and 20 contemporary multimedia artists.

Atypically, the show is mounted in the swank auto/ONE boutique sales office.

Finally, an art opening where the work is displayed in a space where people who can afford it hang out.

Conceived by curator Julie Lee, a documentary filmmaker and founder of the mobile Arthouse Gallery, Regeneration has more than bridging cultures and communities in mind. With any luck, it can inspire confidence, economic and creative opportunities for this remote Coast Tsimshian Nation.

An anthropology major who studied photography at Emily Carr, Lee worked with band teacher/artist Crystal Clark to develop the project concept. Students were handed disposable cameras and encouraged to capture their world in a series of black-and-white images. These photos became the basis of paintings, sculptures and mixed-media works by the participating artists.

The results range from Graeme’s bold oils based on dry-docked fishing-boat pictures and Duncan MacCallum’s 3-D metal representations of a gorgeous smiling girl to Jim Gislason’s fascinating reverse silkscreen and acrylics based on students’ contact sheets.

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